I’ve been waiting all week for NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair to apologize to the millions of Canadians who call themselves evangelical Christians, but it looks like an apology won’t be coming.

Nor will Mulcair admit that he is an outright hypocrite on the issue he is criticizing evangelicals over.

It started with a “news” story published earlier this week by The Canadian Press which said an “anti-gay” group was getting federal tax dollars for doing foreign aid work.

Now that’s an odd description of any group, but it is especially odd when referring to Crossroads Christian Communications.

Since 1982 Crossroads has been involved in helping the poor, the hungry and the thirsty in some of the most desperate places on earth.

In this particular case they were providing water. Yet to CP, this group could simply be dismissed as anti-gay because they hold the traditional Christian teaching that any sex outside of the marriage of one man and one woman is a sin. That view of sexual sin was too much for Mulcair, who branded the group as being un-Canadian.

“It goes against Canadian values. It goes against Canadian law,” Mulcair told reporters in the foyer of the House of Commons.

Here’s the thing though, that view is not illegal and is, in fact, held by Mulcair’s own church.

The Catholic catechism, the official document on church teaching, is even more direct than Crossroads in calling homosexuality a sin.

So based on that, is Mulcair ready to renounce his Catholic faith and demand Catholic groups not get funding?

Hardly.

This isn’t about religion or homosexuality. It is about politics.

In the same breath as Mulcair denounced Crossroads, he called for more funding for a group called Development and Peace, the official aid organization of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops who, incidentally, uphold that section of the catechism I just cited. So what’s the difference?

Mulcair feels at ease bashing Canada’s four million or so evangelicals, viewing them as a group that won’t vote for his socialist dreams. Catholics, meanwhile, Mulcair sees as ready NDP voters as long as they reject all their church teachings on abortion and sexuality like he has.

On Thursday, Sun News reporter Jessica Hume pointed out to Mulcair that the Catholic and evangelical views were the same and asked him whether the Catholic church went against Canadian law and values. Mulcair dodged the question.

I’m not one to push for religious groups to get government money simply because I believe government money harms the churches, forces them to compromise.

But the fact is government money goes to religious groups for foreign aid because they are the experts in the field.

When the rest of the world turns away, religious groups step in.

In the past 30 years, Crossroads has spent

$35 million in private donations delivering foreign aid. In the last 10 years, the feds have ponied up $2 million. It’s like this with so many church groups, the private donations are far in excess of any government money.

But now Mulcair wants to institute a belief test, one that must adhere to his secular worldview. Does Mulcair realize that this is un-Canadian?

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In the 2014 provincial election in Ontario third party advertisers spent $8.4 million to campaign during the writ period, a full $1 million more than political parties themselves were allowed to spend. Almost all of that money was from unions and almost all of it aimed at ensuring one thing: that the Progressive Conservatives lost the vote.